"Holistic Vision" (3/12) - Eye Floaters and Near-Death Experiences

"Holistic Vision"

3/12 (No. 15)

Current Lead Story:
The Shining Sphere at the End of the Tunnel– Eye Floaters and Near-Death Experiences

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Introduction

Open eye meditation on eye floaters

This Mouches-volantes-Picture (Eye-Floaters-Picture) is made by Leuchtstruktur Verlag.

This is the latest issue of “Holistic Vision”, the spiritual project by the author and consciousness researcher Floco Tausin. It is devoted to a phenomenon known as idiopathic or harmless “eye floaters” or “muscae volitantes” (see pictures) among ophthalmologists. We see them as scattered, mobile, transparent dots and strings in our visual field. “Holistic Vision” includes ophthalmology but questions its conclusion on floaters and goes beyond. For the observation and open eye meditation reveals a connection between altered states of consciousness and the way floaters look. Furthermore, a look at different cultures highlights floaters as an object of art and spirituality. By this “holistic vision”, Floco Tausin pursues the question whether these spheres and strings are first appearances of a shining structure of consciousness within which we cover a distance to our spiritual origin – a path that lights up through open eye meditation.

Read further …

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

News Content

The Shining Sphere at the End of the Tunnel –
Eye Floaters and Near-Death Experiences

Persons who were revived after being clinically dead often report unusual and profound perceptions they had in the state of near-death. These experiences defy scientific and religious thinking alike. Some visual elements of near-death experiences (NDE) resemble one particular type of eye floaters, the ‘shining structure floaters’. The thesis of this article is that these floaters and other entoptic phenomena are phenomena of consciousness which continue to exist in states of near-death – and possibly even beyond death.

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Readers’ Hints, Experiences, and Pictures

Eye Floaters as Parasites?

„I feel that eye floaters in my own realization are related to parasitic implants or quick giveaways that interdimensional vampiristic beings leave as evidence, which most just shoosh away as nothing....“

Yeah, well. Actually, all I really know about shining structure floaters is what I can see. But what they are, is a question of interpretation. Ask an ophthalmologist and you’ll have your answer. Ask a Tibetan Buddhist monk or a Tukano shaman, and you’ll have your answers, too. I asked Nestor and his interpretation makes sense to me, even if I’m not able to comprehend all of it by my own seeing till this day. That’s what this is all about.

So what about the “parasite thesis”? Personally, I don’t agree. Perhaps because there’s nothing in my life that brings me to that conclusion. Perhaps because I’m just not ready or fit enough to make a predator mentality my world view. Rather, I like getting myself immersed in the harmonious beauty of these shining dots and strings, becoming focused, calm and conscious. To be sure, this is not to say that the parasite interpretation is wrong. My point is rather that it is our consciousness – and thus the way we experience floaters – that decide what interpretation we feel attracted to.

Marie, a Nashville resident, who says she sees flyers drawed a black flyer.

Marie, a Nashville resident, who says she sees flyers drawed a black flyer. (source)

Probably the most famous example for the parasite thesis of floaters comes from author Carlos Castaneda (CC). He describes the so-called “flyers” (Spanish voladores) in his tenth book, “The Active Side Of Infinity” (1997). The flyer is allegedly a predatory creature that lives on the energy of people’s awareness. This “inorganic” being can be perceived as a big shadow or impenetrable shade, which “leaps through the air” and is seen in the dark. In an interview published 1995 in the Summer (June-August) issue of Kindred Spirit magazine, the three “Chacmool” women Kylie Lundahl, Reni Murez and Nyei Murez declared that “the flyers of the sorcerers‘ tradition are black shadows that we sometimes detect and explain away as floaters in the retina”, making the only explicit link of CC’s subjective visual phenomena to eye floaters known to me. Moreover, according to the Carol Tiggs Chronology on the CC legacy website “Sustained Action” (sustainedaction.org), a man named Tony Karam captured a flyer photo which was later displayed by the CC group at several workshops in the 1990s.

This indicates that the parasite explanation resonates with the perception of something dark in the visual field that cannot be seen clearly. Whatever these “sorcerers” are talking about, it has little to do with the shining structure floaters – they are not shadows and you cannot take a picture. I suspect that seeing unclear and unfocused shadows in one’s visual field may contribute not only to stress – as we know from floater sufferers –, but to interpretations with pessimistic contents in order to cope with the perception.

Mark’s parasite thesis – and the reason for it – may be different from CC’s. But what really matters to me is this: Let’s embrace any world view that makes sense to us. But in any case, let’s be clear about who we are, what drive us, why we prefer this or that world view. Did that already and still convinced that floaters are parasites? Be my guest.

Thanks, Mark, for sharing your experiences and thoughts!
-- Floco

References:

Eye floaters and their meaning were interpreted differently depending on the time, culture and personality of the observer. We learn a spiritually meaningful perspective about floaters from Nestor, the seer, with whom I have studied and whose teachings I recorded in the book „Mouches volantes – Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness“. In this category, a particular statement from the book on floaters shall be presented and explained.

From: Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters. The Shining Structure of Consciousness, p. 246. (source)

A seer-friend of Nestor, the “thinker,” explains that the basic structure of shining spheres and strings can be heard.

As a former linguist, the thinker had developed a cosmos of language that bound a lot of his energy in terms and thinking patterns. To extract that energy and release it into the picture as a whole, he resorted to a simple exercise: He repeated the terms central to him over and over, until they lost their meaning – an exercise similar to the repetition of “power words” in both Eastern and Western traditions. After a while, this resulted in a rushing sound in the thinker’s ears – later also in spheres and strings lighting up –, indicating that the energy flows freely.

In terms of physiology, the “rushing sound of the basic structure” could be a kind of tinnitus, the perception of sound within the ear without a corresponding external source. There is a wide range of causes. While most of them are idiopathic, viz. not caused by a disease, others are pathological and can be treated. Subjective, harmless tinnitus is very common, insofar as most people can perceive a noise or ringing in the ears when they become quiet and pay attention to it. Thus, tinnitus has many interesting parallels to the purely subjective idiopathic floaters (‘shining structure floaters’). But while floaters are understood as vitreous opacities – not as specific neuronal activity like other entoptic phenomena –, the origin of tinnitus is no longer looked for in the inner ear, but in the altered neuronal activity in different brain areas.

Many people know that inner ringing or rushing from spiritual practices and altered states of consciousness. Correspondingly, the alternative interpretations are diverse, ranging from a particular stage in the ‘light body processes to encrypted information from the angels. For the Emmental seers, the shining spheres and the rushing sound are consciousness phenomena that become more and more discernible by increasing the energetic intensity of our psychophysical system. As in the case of seeing floaters, the “listening to the rushing sound” also serves as a meditation object.

Stripline in the Eye Floaters News

Quarterly Picture

“Ascent of the Blessed” by Hieronymus Bosch

The category "Quarterly Picture" introduces realistic, artistic and/or spiritual/religious representations from different cultures and times which could show entoptic phenomena, or be inspired by it.

“Ascent of the blessed” is frequently shown in texts about near-death experiences (NDE). Originally, it is an altarpiece by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516). These altarpieces are finely and precisely painted works of art, inspired by the Bible, the lives of saints and the political and religious turmoil of pre-Protestant Europe; they are rich in symbolism and morality, and yet difficult to interpret in detail.

Hieronymus Bosch: Ascent of the Blessed (1500-1504), oil on wood, 87x40 cm

Untypical, the scene of “Ascent of the Blessed” is calm, clear and timeless, free from all mystery, mockery and symbolism. Bosch was never reluctant to create fantastic, heavenly and hellish landscapes in great figurative detail. Here, however, he turns to a rather abstract representation – a light at the end of a tube-like passageway – in order to indicate the Christian paradise. Bosch may have been inspired by a NDE. An interesting detail that allows a better understanding is the segmentation of the tunnel. This corresponds to reports of many individuals who assert that they have moved through a segmented tunnel during their NDEs, the segments are often described as “spherical” or “round”. Moving through tube-like rows of spheres towards a bright light – this is also seen by mystics and seers in intense states of consciousness. Entoptics like shining structure floaters provide the subjective visual frame for experiences like that. Thus, Bosch’s “Ascent of the Blessed” may be the Christian version of the individual consciousness’ entoptic trip into other, non-physical realms of existence.

A more profound consideration of the relationship of shining structure floaters and NDEs is given in the lead story of this newsletter.

You will find simillar entoptic pictures in the gallery. Do you have drawings of eye floaters or other entoptic phenomena (flying corpuscles, afterimages etc.)? Do you know of realistic, artistic and religious representations of such appearances? Then send me the picture or give me the tip; I would like to publish it in the newsletter and/or in the gallery.

Publications by Floco Tausin

You’ll find a complete list with all previous publications in German and English (monographs, anthologies, magazines) at Website.
These articles are also available in the member area.

Shamash, Ishtar and Igigi – Floater structures in ancient Mesopotamia
In Western culture, the phenomenon of eye floaters (or muscae volitantes) is primarily understood in line with modern ophthalmology as “vitreous opacities”. However, the review of mythical and spiritual visual arts from former and non-Western cultures discloses abstract symbols that resemble the typical structures of shining structure floaters. This suggests that floaters have been widely interpreted as a mythical or spiritual phenomenon; and that there might be a perceptual dimension of floaters that is hardly known to modern man. This article provides a trip to the visual worlds of Mesopotamia and suggests that floaters have found their way into the art and imagination of this ancient civilization.

Published:
- Ovi Magazine, 10.8.12. ovimagazine.com (19.8.12)
- Ufodigest, 6.8.12. ufodigest.com (19.8.12)